Tuesday, July 21, 2015

For Whatever reason
many people throughout the world have grown to resent Americans. Why? I
couldn’t tell you, but it is because of this resentment that travel outside the
U.S. is very dangerous for most Americans; especially young Americans. There are two iconic films that deal with the
subject of young Americans in Europe who are being attacked by hostile natives:
“Hostel” and “Taken”. Even though they
have similar plots they do have some distinctive differences that help them
stand out, and today Miss-E and I are going to debate which film is better.

Hostel (By Brian
Cotnoir)

“Hostel” tells the story of 2 Yong Americans, named Paxton and Josh,
traveling across Europe on trip of fun, debauchery, and self-discovery. Paxton and Josh (along with their friend Olli
from Iceland) wind up in Amsterdam expecting a world of nothing, but pot smoking
and sex crazed locals, only to be disappointed to realize that Amsterdam is
totally overrun with American tourists, and they want to get away from
them. They meet a European teen, who
tells them that they have to go to Slovakia where the hostels there are
crawling with young, horny, sex-crazed women who love American guys. The three friends decide to take a train to
Slovakia and after some skeptical uncertainty they arrive at the hostel to
discover that it is everything the young man back in Amsterdam promised them it
would be.

However after all the binge drinking and
promiscuous sex, one of the friends Paxton (played by actor Jay Hernandez)
notices that his friends Olli and Josh have disappeared. He asks the locals if they’ve seen his
friends only to be told that they went home or they left. However Paxton doesn’t believe his friends
would just leave without telling him.
After some sleuthing and persistent questioning of the locals Paxton
learns that he and his friends have been sold in an on-line auction by a group
called The Elite Hunting Group. The
Elite Hunting Group offers people the chance to live out their homicidal and
torture fantasies for a high-price, and they always get Top Dollar from people
for Americans. Paxton learns that his
friends have endured horrendous deaths and now he is next.

So
the characters in “Hostel” aren’t the
most heroic or even likable, but they still have to endure
some pretty horrifying things even for a bunch of douchebags. All they wanted to do was have a good time
and have sex with lots of beautiful women.
That is something every guy in life wants. Now I once had a discussion with a friend of
mine and she said “’Hostel’ [was]
scary, but totally unrealistic [because] who would every pay just torture
someone?” to which I replied “I’m pretty sure if you gave me a baseball bat,
and placed a child molester in front of me, I’m pretty sure I could make myself
do some things I didn’t think I was capable of doing”. They Agreed. Now while I can admit that being
kidnapped and sold into the sex trade is not a better outcome, I still maintain my belief that being sold to be
tortured to death is a much more gruesome fate.
Plus, who’s going to rescue those boys?
Let’s be honest; the first time everybody saw the trailer for the movie
“Taken” we all knew that Liam Neeson
was going to save his daughter and do it in the most kick a$$ fashion
imaginable. As for Paxton, Josh, and
Olli, they only had themselves to rely on.
None of their parents were going to come to their rescue (hell, I don’t
even think they knew where in Europe they were). The only one who managed to get escape with
his life was Paxton, and he did it with almost no help from anyone (and trust
me: there was no happy ending for
Paxton, as made evident by the intro to “Hostel
2”).

The reasons why I
feel that “Hostel” is a scarier movie
than “Taken”.

Taken (By Lauren
Ennis)

Unlike Hostel,
which focuses upon the physical tortures that an unsuspecting group of tourists
endure, Taken’s focus is instead upon
its protagonist’s emotional anguish. Like Hostel,
Taken involves young Americans who are abducted while on vacation in
Europe, but rather than chronicle the horrors that the girls endure at the
hands of their captors, the story is told from the perspective of one of the
girls’ father as he struggles to find and free his daughter. While both films
highlight the dangers that we expose ourselves to when in an unfamiliar place, Taken’s greatest punches are packed not
by its many thrilling action scenes, but by the raw emotion at the core of its
story. Through its honest portrayal of a parent in crisis, Taken reveals the fears that lie within all us of us and the
lengths to which we will go when the people we love are put into jeopardy.

The story begins with former CIA agent turned
private bodyguard Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) struggling to rebuild his
relationship with his estranged teenage daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace ). When he
learns that Kim and her friend, Amanda (Katie Cassidy), are planning a trip to
Paris he is strongly opposed to the idea but eventually agrees to let her go
after being pressured by his ex-wife (Famke Janssen). As he sees Kim off at the
airport, however, he learns that the girls are actually planning a
cross-continental trip following U2’s European tour, rather than the agreed
upon stay with Amanda’s cousins. Despite his misgivings, Brian decides that it
is too late to stop the girls’ plans and sends Kim off with a loving warning to
be careful. Almost as soon as the girls land, however, they form a fast
friendship with local boy Peter (Nicolas Giraud) and give him the address of
the apartment they’re staying in after he invites them to a party. The
seemingly harmless acquaintance quickly turns sinister when the girls arrive at
the apartment only to find that Amanda’s cousins are in Spain and several men,
using Peter’s tip, infiltrate the apartment and abduct first Amanda and then
Kim. Fortunately, before she is kidnapped, Kim makes a call to Bryan relaying
her plight and providing him with a description of her abductor. With only
Kim’s few words to follow and a “specific set of skills” to aid him, Bryan sets
out on a journey through the Parisian underworld to bring his daughter home and
take vengeance on her captors.

Despite its status as an action film, Taken highlights a devastating reality
and approaches the topic of sex trafficking with the seriousness that it
deserves. Over the course of Bryan’s journey, the film depicts the various
networks of organized crime and political corruption that run and maintain the
vast and lucrative trafficking business. As he delves deeper into the mystery
of his daughter’s disappearance he quickly learns how the industry thrives on a
combination of greed, societal indifference, and fear. The film deftly shows the
maze of networks that make up the trafficking industry, which leaves viewers
with little doubt as to how easily its victims can disappear in broad daylight.
When he finally gains access to the city’s underground brothels he is horrified
to learn how the girls are psychologically and physically abused until they
finally break, and are then provided with access to drugs under the guise of
allowing them an outlet, which in reality puts them further under their
captors’ control. The moment that Bryan finds Amanda dead of an apparent drug
overdose is truly chilling in the way that it shows the desperate lengths that
trafficking victims will go to in order to escape (at least temporarily) the
pain of their existence and echoes the influence of heroin and other drugs in
the midst of today’s opiate epidemic. Through its bleak depiction of the inner
depths of the sex trade Taken
delivers horrors of an all too real variety that will have you thinking twice
before you book your next vacation.

While the film contains the familiar action flick
elements of death-defying stunts, sadistic villains, and constant plot twists,
at its heart Taken remains a tale of
a man trying to hold onto his family. When the film first starts, Bryan has
retired from the CIA, despite his exemplary career record and the agency’s
continued demand for his skills, in an effort to lead a more stable,
family-driven life. He then makes time to visit his daughter, even though it
means facing remaining bitterness from his ex-wife and awkward interactions
with her new husband. Through the film’s early scenes, audiences are able to
gain insight into Bryan’s struggle to hold onto what remains of his family,
while still leading the violent life that his career demands. As a result, his
journey to rescue Kim can be seen as a metaphor for trying to reconnect with
her before she reaches adulthood and is emotionally lost to him. Viewed from
this perspective, Taken becomes more
than a somewhat relatable action film, and is elevated to a universal tale of the
need for family connection in an increasingly disconnected world. Therefore,
Bryan’s fears of losing Kim both literally in the sense that she could
disappear into the international sex trade and figuratively in the sense that
his time to be part of her youth is running out are equally terrifying and
relevant.

Through its combination of action-packed thrills, emotional
depth, and chills torn straight from the headlines, Taken is a film that will maintain a hold on viewers even after
they leave the theater. The film works equally well as an entertaining
thriller, heart-wrenching family drama, and exploration of the modern black
market. When I was first approached with writing this review, the Film Junkie
asked, “What’s more terrifying, being kidnapped in Europe and sold to be
tortured to death or being kidnapped in Europe and sold as a sex slave”. That
is a question that still remains uncomfortable and difficult to answer, but I
can answer that the anguish that Bryan withstands in Taken is truly the stuff of every parent’s nightmare that will
undoubtedly leave any parents in the audience nothing short of haunted.

Monday, July 13, 2015

I will be writing a joint review with our own Film Junkie next week, which would have been scheduled as an off week. As a result, I will be adjusting the review schedule so that this week will not be featuring a new review and next week will feature our joint review.

In the meantime, I recommend that you check out my reviews of Funny Girl and Doctor Zhivago in honor of star Omar Sharif who died last week, and To Kill a Mockingbird as a prep for the upcoming publication of the original novel's sequel, Go Set a Watchman.